After Gaddafi, What Now? Issues of Transitional Justice

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Creator

Pedersen, Katarina Marcella

Advisor

Moghaddam, Fathali M

Abstract

Libya is in a state of transition following the Arab Spring revolution of 2011. Because Muammar Al-Gaddafi's dictatorship imposed structural violence, direct violence, and cultural violence, causing many injustices and human rights violations, as well as the violent nature of the transition, there is a dire need for transitional justice within the country. Through the lenses of Fathali Moghaddam's springboard to dictatorship model, social psychology, conflict resolution theory, and transitional justice theory and practice, I analyze the Libyan challenge of transitional justice based on the specific history that the country experienced under Gaddafi. My recommendations include ensuring local ownership of the transition process, establishing security before attempting transitional justice processes, balancing punitive justice and restorative justice in prosecutions, being careful concerning lustration, not conducting a truth commission any time soon, ensuring sensible reparations, and approaching reconciliation in an inclusive manner, all the while adhering to nonviolent methods. Keeping the psychology of change and the springboard to dictatorship model in mind, I also recommend patience concerning the change of informal normative systems and the inclusion of checks and balances in the government as insurance against future governmental abuses of power.

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